Snippet #2751739

The noise of that many minds reached her in a tide of melody. It wasn't the cacophonous riot that humankind were prone to. Still, it disturbed her work so thus inclined to stop for now. These were in concordance to at least some degree. A stronger force some backing of intellects within the ship to stabilize the whole. A purpose not wholly unfamiliar to the creatures of Myrkul's Vein. Though peculiarities of the ship's inhabitants had hallmarks of other finds of hers. Remnants among her duties to tend broken souls found by Myrkul among aetherkind. Particularly in recent demonkind she did not object as she rather enjoyed puzzles. Some managed to come forth from the dross whole enough that they repairs were not impossible. Some remnants too long crumbled see little more than amalgam into a favored template. Amalgam of pieces from unnameable souls had some semblance of affinity for their kin. Yet little evidence of an intelligent being. In whole their souls all had some sort of the same self-inflicted wound. Seen to her by a concordance of one kind or another. Each stuck out like a troupe of odd clothed foreign actors with a uniform limp.

Some of them arrive instead within small stones pocketed by demons. Attendant parts with some but forbidden to rekindle nonhumankind she saw them disposed. So Eldrylth's diligent eye shapes their new template around the souls instead. Imprisoning them in a rock seemed more akin to aetherkind efficient though it was. Some souls were too tainted even before they died but seemed of a kind nonetheless. The template couldn't sustain real sapient thought but by this did not break dicta. She couldn't return them to a cognizant bodied form. It did halt the degradation of their limping soul at least and some of them could then still heal the scars. Repair of nonhumankind was never perfect. Otherwise the agreeable ones stored away tending to themselves. Food dropped from the sky to see the templates fed until deciding what to do with them. In this case she would now return them to their own.

Within her inworld from that blue sky her attention then went. Where the creatures and soul anchors lie resting. The anchors incomplete puzzles she'd not yet finished. Near woody pedestals in a grassy bright place of a sunless blue sky small fireflies emerge. Each a psychoportation loci that flit off to all targets. Most head at a tall pine of irrational height small pale squirrels with pointy tufted ears roam free. The fireflies separate and circle around each as she waits for all to find their targets. Some of the more intact souls look a critical eye at the object they know as part of the Eldrylth. Others either hid or chased as raw instinct of the template reacted.

The rest were easier to find. Amalgams reincarnated their templates as pups with some ceaseless repetition. The small pups huddled in nests arranged by the discerning few. The nature of what was wrong with the amalgam wasn't clear to her despite a passing interest. At least the mewling creatures were always in one place for the keen-eyed ones to tend to. Last were black squirrels below in iron cages that rattle and froth at the fireflies. That did them little good as weak as she made their templates. Each marked with some symbol Eldrylth was aware they identified with. She assumed them known enough to warn their kind. Offended by their natures tainted by demonkind she'd scraped their housing template clean. No wells of accessible power left in their frame when building templates. Far more a prison than the stones she'd found in some demonkind's pocket.

Back in space an eye and awareness went to the direction of the craftworld. Eldrylth's massive head pivoted away from her work to an empty space nearby to work. A basal maw flares raw metacreativity using bound psimass to will shard into form. Initial chaotic volumes assemble a small bulb of aluminosilicate. The templates did need to eat and breathe to harden atmosphere against space. Both materials plentiful in the belts the form consuming little of her resources. As the last shards assembled more fireflies of psychoportation appear inside. Clods of dirt and grass fall from flares into the sphere.

Atop the patchwork quilt of manifested grass the migrants the last to arrive. Alarmed pale squirrels and those unmoved critical eyes forced by transition inside. Some looked up at Eldrylth then collected the amalgam pups that arrived. Black ones arrive in a sturdy isolation a large cage with metal iron bars. Each bar far heavier than their scoured template's meagre strength. A screeching throng of anger with house symbols showing in the fur of their heads. The quieter squirrels looking on with distaste as some of the panicked stop to chatter at them.

The template she'd built any of them hadn't the ability to respond to a deep psionic voice. Though as she talked she pondered the those steel-eyed ones in particular.

Their critical eye had much to say as she talks, "Nonhumankind, those are your own and from now I wash myself of you to them. I return to you names that belong to you though some now only exist in the amalgams."

Small blue shards flicker into existence and clink into the center of the grassy dome. Each emblazoned with names she'd recovered in the progress of templating them. Though glad to be rid of them constant reformation of amalgams was tiring. As she impulsed them in the direction of the worldship she did have a wistful moment. As one does when giving away toys.

The warlocks or seers less enthused by any reasonable estimation. A creeping sphere came with some of the aetheric construct squirrels now busied. Some of the critical eyed holding functional eldar souls dug through the pile. As they found their proper names and remembered themselves once more. Threads that fate deigned to have cut reaching out to fuse to fate once more.